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In our Anecdotal Evidence column, movers and shakers share personal stories听of how intriguing (and often odd) campaigning in their respective swing state can be.
Steve Schale 鈥� Obama鈥檚 2008 Florida campaign director
Steve Schale. Photo: Lars Gesing/CU News Corps
鈥淚n 2008 the Obama team agreed to start the last full campaign day in Florida. We went to Jacksonville. It was the morning when he found out his grandmother had passed away. Barack Obama gave probably one of the two or three worst speeches of his life. He forgot what county he was in, he was just reading off the teleprompter.
鈥淓very day for the last 13 days of the campaign, we would get a daily update of how we were doing with the early votes. The morning of the last day, we got the final update of all the people who had voted. In terms of Republicans versus Democrats, we were ahead by about 400,000 Democrats, which was a larger margin than John Kerry lost Florida by. So basically, we had won. Unless something weird was going on, we had won. And if we had won Florida, then we had won.
鈥淓very day I would email these numbers to Robert Gibbs, who was then the campaign press secretary, so he could talk to the reporters. That last day I told Gibbs, and he came up to me right after the event. Obama was walking around backstage like he had been hit with a frying pan. Gibbs goes, 鈥楬ey man, why don鈥檛 you cheer him up? Why don鈥檛 you tell him what you told me?鈥�
鈥淪o we go back into this little room. I give Obama my phone and try to explain to him these numbers. He asked, 鈥榃hat does that mean?鈥� I told him it means we had won Florida. David Axelrod was in the room, and he said something like, 鈥榃e won!鈥�
鈥淲e walk out of the room, and Obama went, 鈥榊ou did a good job. Don鈥檛 screw it up!鈥�
鈥淭hat whole campaign, I never thought we were going to lose. I was convinced we had a good plan, a good staff. It was the only campaign I ever worked on where the plan we wrote literally played out exactly like we thought it would. I never doubted we were going to win even though we were down four or five points at one time.
鈥淏ut after that, I felt so nervous I couldn鈥檛 talk. I just told this guy we had won Florida and that he is probably going to be president. I thought, 鈥榃hat if I screw this up? What if I was wrong?鈥� They threw me out of the war room on Election Day. I was a wreck. I was pacing in the parking lot of the hotel where our victory party was, thinking 鈥極h my God? What if we lose? He is always going to remember this guy who told him we were going to win.'鈥�